‘Throw away the key,’ wife of Utah shooting victim tells judge

Charles Richard Jennings Jr. is lead into the courtroom for his sentencing at Second District Court in Ogden Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. Jennings pleaded guilty of attempted murder for shooting his father-in-law while he and his wife attended a Catholic Mass in Ogden last June. (BRIAN NICHOLSON/Standard-Examiner/POOL)

Charles Richard Jennings Jr. is lead into the courtroom for his sentencing at Second District Court in Ogden Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. Jennings pleaded guilty of attempted murder for shooting his father-in-law while he and his wife attended a Catholic Mass in Ogden last June. (BRIAN NICHOLSON/Standard-Examiner/POOL)

Ogden • James Evans doesn't remember exactly what caused him to turn his head during a Father's Day church service last year. But he knows that whatever it was, it saved his life.

Moments before, his son-in-law, Charles Jennings Jr., had walked into the St. James the Just Catholic Church, hand-in-hand with Evans' daughter. At the exact moment Evans turned his head, Jennings pulled out a silver handgun and fired one shot.

But instead of hitting the father-in-law in the base of his skull as intended, the bullet went through Evans' right ear and exited through his cheek — causing neither death nor brain damage.

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On Thursday, Evans — mostly healed from the gunshot wound — stood before 2nd District Judge W. Brent West and asked him to punish Jennings harshly for the June 16 crime.

"I ask that you sentence him to the maximum prison time the law allows," Evans said, an audible slur still apparent due to gunshot damage to his teeth and tongue.

Tara Evans told West that after Jennings shot her husband, her son-in-law turned and pointed the gun at her chest. If it weren't for a number of unarmed parishioners who rushed toward the shooter, she said she felt he would have tried to kill her too.

"He needs to be locked up and throw away the key," Tara Evans told the judge.

Jennings, 36, pleaded guilty — but mentally ill — to attempted murder and two counts of aggravated burglary, all first-degree felonies, along with a misdemeanor possession of firearms charge.

On Thursday, West sentenced Jennings to prison for four years to life for the attempted murder count, six years to life for each burglary count, and one year in jail for the firearms charge. But the judge gave Jennings a break by ordering the sentences to run concurrently, rather than consecutively.

The mentally ill plea gave West the option of sending Jennings to the state hospital for additional treatment before the defendant went to prison, but West sent the defendant straight to prison.

Jennings did not speak in court on Thursday. His attorney, Michael Bouwhuis, said Thursday that while his client was found competent for trial, he definitely is mentally ill. The attorney said that doctors believe Jennings has auditory hallucinations and a psychotic disorder.

"He was mad and the voices influenced him to shoot the victim," Bouwhuis said, adding that the claim is not a "cooked up scheme" to get a plea deal.

Prosecutors said Jennings' long-term drug abuse has contributed to his mental illness.

"I think he put himself into this position by using methamphetamine," Deputy Weber County Attorney Dean Saunders said outside of court.

After the shooting, Jennings fled the church, located at 495 N. Harrison Blvd, and went to a nearby neighborhood, where he allegedly stole a truck from a resident at gunpoint, according to charging documents.

He was found several hours later walking along Interstate 84 in Box Elder County after the truck ran out of gas. Officers say he was trying to flee to Idaho.

Tara Evans said her daughter told her that Jennings came to shoot them on that June day because the daughter was "coming to look at vacation photos after Mass." She said Jennings was abusive and possessive of her daughter.